Understanding Children’s Early Literacy Development: The Nature and Role of Parental Support
by Linda Kusleika
Bachelor of Science, University of Massachusetts, 1979 Bachelor of Education, University of British Columbia, 1993
A Project Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
MASTER OF EDUCATION In the area of Language and Literacy Department of Curriculum and Instruction
© Linda Kusleika, 2014 University of Victoria
All rights reserved. This project may not be reproduced in
whole or in part, by photocopy or other means, without the permission of the author.
Abstract
The project, “Understanding Children’s Early Literacy Development:
The Nature and Role of Parental Support” focused on exploring how parents can support their children’s early literacy development and on examining research on the importance of supporting early literacy development. The literature review also focused on reading theories, critical factors in early literacy acquisition, and ways to support early literacy at home. Critical factors in early literacy acquisition include motivating learning, readiness for learning, non-‐traditional Western literacy
practices, indigenous early literacy, and play. Oral language, reading through shared book reading and environmental print, phonological awareness, letter knowledge, and how the home environment and parental help support literacy are also
included. The project concludes with a PowerPoint and script intended for parents and colleagues.
Table of Contents
Abstract ... ii
Table of Contents ... iii
Acknowledgements ... v
Chapter 1 ... 1
Personal Background ... 1
Defining Early Literacy and Early Literacy Support ... 2
My Research Focus ... 3
The Importance of Supporting Early Literacy Development ... 4
Research Questions ... 5 Project Overview ... 5 Chapter 2 ... 6 Literature Review ... 6 Theoretical Framework ... 7 Reading Theories ... 10
Bottom-‐up Theory of Reading ... 10
Top-‐Down Theory of Reading ... 11
Interactive Reading Theory ... 13
Transactional Reading Theory ... 14
Sociocultural Perspectives on Literacy Learning ... 16
Critical Factors in Early Literacy Acquisition ... 17
Home Support ... 18
Readiness for Learning ... 22
Non-‐Traditional Western Literacy Practices ... 26
Indigenous Early Literacy ... 28
The Role of Play in Early Literacy Development ... 29
The Adult’s Role in Socio-‐Dramatic Play ... 35
How to Support Play ... 40
Best Ways to Support Early Literacy Development at Home ... 41
Oral Language ... 41
Reading ... 48
Shared Book Reading ... 49
Environmental Print ... 50
Phonologic Awareness ... 52
Letter Knowledge ... 54
Home Environment and Parental Help Support In-‐School Literacy ... 55
Summary ... 58
Chapter 3 ... 59
Implications for Teaching ... 59
Considerations for Future Research ... 62
Conclusion……….63 References ... 64 Appendix A ... 76
Acknowledgements
Many people have supported me through this process and without whom I could not have been successful. The love and support I received from my friends, family, and colleagues has played an important role in my journey to complete my Master’s of Education.
I am grateful to my friends for supporting me through this process. They enquired, read, listened, cheered, and encouraged me every step of the way. They were patient with the amount of time I spent away from them. I am lucky to have such wonderful support.
Thank you to my advisor, Dr. Ruthanne Tobin for your endless support and encouragement. You supported my vision of this project and made it possible by keeping me focused and by breaking things down into manageable parts. You found ways to encourage me when I was flagging, with patience and the right words. I admire the way that you practice what you teach in your courses. You are a true mentor. Without your help, I do not believe that I could have enjoyed this expedition of learning as much as I did.
I am especially grateful to my son, David Walker for inspiring me to further my own education as he undertakes his. I appreciate our continuing connection, sharing the growth that results through effort. Through all the twists and turns that have taken place since your birth, I love sharing this journey called life with you
Chapter 1 Personal Background
As an educator, student, and parent, I have spent many years developing my understanding of how children learn. I have observed children that learn new concepts with ease and those that struggle to learn. I have witnessed children that actively explore their environment and those that sit still for long periods of time silently observing. I have worked with children of all ages, teaching various subjects including foods, outdoor education, and reading. I have worked within different socioeconomic settings and with different cultures.
I have also observed parents interacting with their children at home and at school. I have worked in schools where parents hover over their children
(helicopter parents), hanging up their child’s coat and delivering their child’s homework in-‐person to the teacher, in classrooms where parents join in on field trips, and in classrooms where parents never come in the door of the school over the course of the school year. I have observed families that tell oral stories to their children to pass on stories, traditions and values of their culture, families that read books together as part of a daily routine, and families that do not have anything in the house to read.
My inspiration for investigating how parents can support their young children’s literacy development evolved over time as I shared space and learning environments with parents, children, administrators, and other educators. At some point I became engaged in finding out the best approaches to learning and to
support learning as I became aware that there are many differing opinions and ideas surrounding the promotion of early literacy. I became curious about what the
literature had to say on this topic and whether it agreed or disagreed with what my district, school, and classroom were endorsing. I was also curious to find out
whether there is agreement by researchers and government on best practices on this subject.
Defining Early Literacy and Early Literacy Support
For the purposes of this project, children in early literacy refers to children between the ages of three and ten. For the purposes of this project I define literacy as practices that promote listening, talking, reading, or writing. Recent research emphasizes that literacy is something an individual chooses to engage in to construct knowledge, create, communicate, reflect, empathize, critique, and to appreciate (Kennedy, 2013). Meaning-‐making could be tracing the shapes of letters while making the sound of the letter, writing a shopping list, or listening to a book or an oral story being read. Researchers have demonstrated a link between children’s early literacy development and parental support (Strickland, 2004). Early literacy support can be defined as an interaction or activity that takes place both formally or informally with a supportive adult or peer that fosters children’s literacy
acquisition. It can take place at home, in the car, or at school. Early literacy support often takes place as an informal arrangement between adults and children. It may be an ongoing routine such as reading before bed, or happen in a spontaneous manner such as reading road signs.
My Research Focus
Personally, I want to know what the best practices are in early literacy development and how these practices could be improved to be consistent with the research literature. I want to be able to tell parents about how to help support their children outside of school and to know what resources to recommend. I want to empower parents, to make it easy for them to know what to do for their children and how to do it. As a parent, I would be grateful if someone told me the most effective ways to help support my child in his early literacy development, especially if my child was finding school challenging.
Even before I began researching the literature, I noticed some disagreement about the best way to teach children to learn. In my University education, I studied the various reading theories such as top-‐down whole language methods and bottom-‐up phonics methods used with beginning readers.
As a teacher, I wanted to know what to tell parents about how to support their child’s early literacy development to correspond with what I was teaching in the classroom. I observed parents enroll their children in commercial literacy programs that had no relationship to the methods and strategies used to develop reading skills in my classroom. Parents invested in expensive games and programs, often those that were not effective, and became discouraged when their child lost interest or when their child continued to struggle. In addition, I observed parents enrolling their children in reading programs that lasted for a short amount of time and after the program ended, the learning was not reinforced at home.
I also observed administrators trying to support parents to help their children. In addition to school programs that served the socioeconomically disadvantaged in the form of meals and supplies, administrators worked with parents to try to support learning by ensuring attendance. I think that some
administrators would appreciate knowing research-‐based ideas for supporting early literacy and share this knowledge with parents.
I believe that if a parent is educated about the research on supporting early literacy and is guided with a few inexpensive tools appropriate to their child’s stage of literacy development that can be used at home, children and parents will benefit.
The Importance of Supporting Early Literacy Development
We want to prepare our children to be successful in the world and one of the most important ways to do this is to ensure that they are literate. We want our children to learn to talk and communicate, to be able to understand both the spoken word and the written word, and to be able to communicate with the written word. Ideally, a literate person is a lifelong learner, equipped with skills of communication and understanding and able to engage with the world in a manner that enriches their life and supports them in becoming a self-‐actualized, empowered, and responsible citizen.
Language is learned before children attend school. Children that are exposed to language before school and have multiple opportunities to observe and
experiment with language are at a distinct advantage (Strickland, 2004). Children that are exposed to imaginative play before school are able to develop their cognition and self –regulation and develop their social skills (Bodrova and Leong,
2001). Children that are exposed to reading before entering school develop both an understanding of the structure of a story, development of vocabulary, and an understanding of how both print and a book works (Neumann et al., 2000). All of these literacies help develop a child’s cognition and are critical to a child’s social and academic success (Heath, 1983; Kennedy, 2013; Baroody & Diamond, 2010).
Moreover, supportive parents that model literacy through engaging with it themselves both for practical considerations and for pleasure deliver an important message that literacy is valued (Weigel & Martin, 2005). Children grow up valuing the artifacts, skills, and space of literacy and are more likely to engage in reading, writing, and communicating outside of school (Weigel & Martin, 2005).
Research Questions
I approach the research literature on my topic with three questions in mind: What are some critical factors in early literacy acquisition; What are the best ways to support a child’s early literacy development at home? ; How can the home environment and parental help support in-‐school literacy?
Project Overview
In Chapter 1 I have discussed my motivations that inspired me to create this project. I have explained the importance of parents supporting their young
children’s literacy development and the theoretical background of children’s cognitive development. In addition to the theoretical foundation in Chapter 2, I review a selection of literature foundational to my project. Topics addressed in the literature review include the importance of play, self-‐regulation, formal literacy
programs, funds of knowledge, and home literacy practices including reading to young children and the structure of home literacy practices. In Chapter 3, I identify three readings that I found to be the most important and relevant for my colleagues to read and their implications for pedagogy. I outline the PowerPoint presentation that I created for my project and its connection to the literature reviewed in Chapter 2. I also discuss the challenges I faced with my review of the literature and
suggestions for future research.
My PowerPoint presentation, “Looking at the Literature: How Parents Can Support Their Young Children’s Early Literacy Development” is included in the Appendix, and intended as a summary of what I learned in my project. The
PowerPoint workshop consists of 21 slides with an accompanying facilitator script that backs up the slides and containing text that facilitates presentation of the slides. The presentation is important to the growing body of information on supporting early literacy by parents, administrators, and educators as it focuses on relevant tools to support young children’s early literacy.
Chapter 2
Literature Review
In this chapter I present the theoretical underpinnings of how young children learn how to talk and read. I discuss the importance of talk and how this can
facilitate greater learning. I also discuss how talk leads to reading. I discuss theories about how children learn how to read and discuss other contributing factors
relation to my questions. I present this in several themes. My first theme is about some of the factors that affect early literacy including early literacy development, readiness for learning, non-‐traditional Western literacy practices, Indigenous early literacy, and home-‐school partnerships. I look at the role of play and how this supports early literacy. Next, I examine the development of oral language and reading development and how this affects early literacy.
Theoretical Framework
The theoretical section of this paper will provide a brief background on how parents supporting their young children’s literacy development is rooted in learning theory. I approach the research from a socio-‐constructivist perspective where society and culture are seen as major factors influencing literacy development. In the socio-‐constructivist view, learning is constructed in the matrix between social interaction and the interconnections between the individual and the social
environment, or as Vygotsky suggested, parents, caregivers and the culture at large share in the responsibility for a child's cognitive development, especially in regards to the development of higher order functions (Vygotsky, 1978).
Much time is spent talking and listening daily to exchange information and ideas. Language is acquired when children interact in social settings with adults and peers (Halliday, 2004; Many, 2002; Massey, 2012). Children learn how to speak to communicate their ideas, understand others, and to get their needs met. Promoting oral language development in a language-‐rich environment enables children to develop language and early reading skills. Immersion in language-‐rich environments where children listen to books read aloud and handle books results in learning
about language, reading, and writing (Katims, 1994; Dennis, Lynch, & Stockall, 2012). As they enter school, children identified as early readers share a common history of spending time in environments filled with print and lively interactive conversations (Neumann et al., 2009).
Vygotsky (1978) viewed thinking as a social process. He emphasized, “we learn not only words, but ways of thinking, through our engagement with the people who surround us” (Smagorinsky, 2013, p. 197). Furthermore, he believed that some of children’s developmental outcomes and processes thought to occur naturally were directed and influenced by children’s own learning or constructed as an active engagement in their own mental development (Bodrova & Leong, 2001). This theory helps inform parents of the need to socialize their children, encouraging interaction with others as a way of learning and to broaden their thinking. Vygotsky postulated the idea of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), the theory that “what the child is able to do in collaboration today he will be able to do independently tomorrow” (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 211). In other words, when adults or a more advanced peers support the child to understand and develop oral language through the acquisition of more complex vocabulary, the child will be more likely to be able to use this new vocabulary independently on subsequent tries. This zone is identified as a range that is neither too difficult nor too easy so that the child does not become frustrated or bored and give up. Young children’s oral language development, while spending time in make believe play, is an area that Vygotsky felt that adults could assist, thereby contributing to a young child’s cognitive development.
Further, Gonzales, Moll, & Amanti (2005) found that family contributions or “Funds of Knowledge” added to the child’s learning about the world. Children bring their culture, background, beliefs, and family knowledge to learning. Parents
contribute to their child’s learning, drawing from their cultural backgrounds, life experience, and special skills. Unfortunately, minority groups may not communicate with teachers and administrators due to lack of language skills and cultural
assumptions both by parents and educators. “Learning to value the funds of knowledge of all parents can improve home-‐school relationships” (Whitmore & Meier, 2008, p. 450).
Another important theory was developed by Louise Rosenblatt. She
examined the relationship between the reader and writer. According to Rosenblatt, meaning is created in the transaction between the reader and the text and this transaction creates something new in the reading, independent and different from the contributions from the reading (Pearson, 2009). Smagorinsky (2013)
considered Rosenblatt’s theory of reader response and merged this with Vygotsky’s activity theories and came up with what he named a “cultural model of reading”. He believed that meaning resided in the transactional zone, “in which reader, text, and context meet and become something more than their sums or products” (p. 21). In other words, readers create their own texts as they respond to books. Supportive adults can help guide children by modeling and scaffolding the learning through conversation and activities to support this “transaction”.
Included in this transaction of reading is the reader’s background. Tracey and Morrow (2012), wrote about the importance of Schema theory and its’ relationship
to learning new information. Schemata is defined as the background that a person accesses from their experiences. Tracey and Morrow (2012) highlighted that the more developed a person’s background is on any topic, the more easily that person will be able to learn new information on that topic.
Reading Theories
Educators have an extensive choice of methods and techniques for teaching reading. Discerning best practices in how to teach reading can be challenging. An understanding of the four prominent reading theories provides a historical understanding of reading research and practice and a practical foundation for teaching reading.
Bottom-‐up Theory of Reading
The traditional bottom-‐up approach to reading was popularized in the 1950’s by behavioral psychologists who held that the prevalent look-‐say method of reading popular at the time caused reading difficulties for many students. According to Gough (1972) reading occurs by translating writing into letters, which are then translated into speech sounds, which are then pieced together as single words. Finally, words are put together thus giving the reader the message. Teachers of bottom-‐up reading teach subskills first, often by teaching the names of letters, then sounds of letters, gradually working towards whole words and then whole texts. This model views information flow in a series of independent stages that transform the input and passes it on to the next stage without any feedback (Stanovich, 1980).
Language is seen as a way of transforming letters into sounds to be interpreted by the reader as a passive recipient of information from the text.
Phonics is an example of a bottom-‐up method of reading. In phonics, children are taught how to decode words by learning the sounds of the letters and then piecing the sounds together into individual words. Words are pieced together to enable the reader to arrive at the author’s written message (Gough, 1972). Rules of decoding such as using digraphs, blends, and rules of spelling are taught. According to Gough and Cosky (1977), readers are taught to process letters and words in a systematic and complete fashion.
This model of reading is seen as insufficient as although decoding is
explained, reading is more than sounding out words. Although it is useful to have a knowledge of letter-‐sound relationships, lexical or word knowledge, and syntactic or contextual understanding, reading is composed of more than these parts. In addition to learning the surface structure or sensory structure of the texts, students need to be active participants by bringing their background experiences to the text.
Top-‐Down Theory of Reading
To compensate the behaviorists “drill and kill” concept of reading instruction through bottom-‐up methods, researchers became interested in understanding the thinking behind the behavior of reading (Alexander, 2006). Behaviorism took a back seat to new cognitive theory representing the mind’s innate capacity for learning.
Two research communities: linguists and psycholinguists influenced this reading theory. The linguists, some of which followed in the tradition of Chomsky (1957, 2002), theorized reading achievement followed an innate ability for language and
was influenced by environmental factors, including instruction. The psycholinguists viewed the interaction between reader and text as a natural communicative power. Learning to read as in learning to speak was viewed as a natural process given enough exposure with meaningful contexts (Goodman & Goodman, 1979).
Reading is not just extracting meaning from a text but a process of connecting information in the text with the knowledge the reader brings to the act of reading. A dialogue takes place between the reader and the text while using their cognitive processes in which the reader’s background knowledge plays a key role in the creation of meaning. Reading is an active, purposeful activity, dependent on prior knowledge and expectations of the reader. Less emphasis is placed on decoding and word recognition and more emphasis is placed on pre-‐reading activities to develop the readers’ knowledge of the topic (Stanovich, 2010). Captivating, relevant texts were the focus of this period (Alexander & Fox, 2008).
The interest in understanding what the reader brings to the reading equation was explored in schema theory and had a major impact on top-‐down and other reading instruction. It describes in detail how the background knowledge of the learner interacts with the reading task and illustrates how a student’s knowledge and previous experience with the world is crucial to deciphering a text. According to Gunning (2010), people compartmentalize everything they know into schemata, or knowledge structures and individualize this knowledge. The more elaborated one’s schema is on a particular topic, the easier it is to learn new information on that topic. Reading instruction has been influenced by this theory by highlighting the role
of existing knowledge (what the student brings to the text) in acquiring new knowledge (Cobb and Kallus, 2010).
The top-‐down approach serves fluent readers who read easily but not those still struggling to decode individual words. In addition, a reader with no background of the topic (schemata) will struggle to interact with the text and classmates and to predict possible outcomes in a story. Building and activating student background prior to reading texts with students will help build background knowledge.
Interactive Reading Theory
The interactive theory developed in the 1970’s in recognition of both the importance of the text and the reader in the reading process. The interactive theory brings together top-‐down and bottom-‐up reading theories simultaneously in the reading process. In this non-‐linear process the reader may be influenced, defined, or shaped by the text in a social and cultural context or be influenced in their response to texts. Reading was viewed as an interaction between the reader and the text and valued what the reader brought to the writing on the page (Rumelhart, 1978, Stanovich, 1980). Students were recognized as individuals, possessing different strengths and weaknesses and making connections in different ways, and having the ability to compensate for reading difficulties with other cognitive strengths
(Stanovich, 1980).
Instruction emphasized teaching students how to be efficient and effective text processors through the use of strategies including summarization, mapping, self-‐questioning, and predicting (Alexander and Fox, 2008). Lower level processes (such as decoding a word) and higher-‐level processes (such as inferring the author’s
intent) interacted with each other. In addition, reading was viewed as purposeful, sometimes a social interaction (class book clubs), utilizing prior knowledge of the reader. Needed strategies are taught through scaffolding to support students to become independent readers.
The interactive reading theory was criticized by those who had more naturalistic and holistic views of reading as being an information processing approach (Alexander & Fox 2008). Louise Rosenblatt voiced her concerns that this method neglected the aesthetic of reading, focusing instead on information-‐getting or fact-‐finding (1978/1994).
Transactional Reading Theory
Another reading theory to be discussed is the transactional reading theory. Rosenblatt’s (1978) transactional theory emphasized the social nature of learning as meaning is created in the transaction between the reader and the text. Her theory incorporated ideas from John Dewey and Vygotsky and emphasized how individual social and cultural factors influence readers’ responses and interpretations of the text. The writings of Vygotsky (1962/1986), Lave (1988), Heath (1983), Rogoff (1990) and others promoted a more natural, holistic view of reading (Alexander & Fox, 2008). Skill-‐oriented basal readers of the 1970’s and comprehension-‐oriented basal readers of the 1980’s were replaced by literature-‐based texts where readers’ response trumped comprehension (Pearson, 2009). The “transactive model”
replaced the “interactive model” as the field moved from efferent (primarily reading to gain information) to aesthetic (the purpose of the reading is experiencing the text and the literary world created by the author) response to literature (Rosenblatt,
1978).
According to Rosenblatt, the exchange that takes place during reading is best described by the term transaction, “to emphasize that the meaning is being built up through the back-‐and-‐forth relationship between reader and text during a reading event” (1999). A reader internalizes, and draws on a social context and a socially produced language from their family and society that creates a particular social and cultural environment making each “transaction” a unique reading event (Rosenblatt, 1999). The relationship between the reader and the text is a back-‐and-‐forth process, the reader drawing upon personal experiences as they transact with the text.
Smagorinsky (2001) developed Rosenblatt’s (1978) reader response theory along with Vygotsky’s activity theories (Wertsch, 1993) and came up with his cultural model of reading. He postulated that the meaning in understanding from Rosenblatt’s transactional zone of reading, resides in this zone in which the reader, text, and context meet and become something more than their sums or products (Smagorinsky, 2001). In other words, readers compose their own texts as a response to their reading while reading, evoked from previous texts and
experiences and shaping the type and manner of their interpretations (Pearson, 2009).
In this era of transactional learning, the process of learning rather than the products of learning mattered most. High quality literature replaced basal readers and book clubs that emphasized the aesthetic experience were formed. The
emphasis was placed on the actual experience and the transactional approach provided the basis for a focus on both direct and indirect, tacit effects (Rosenblatt,
1999).
Sociocultural Perspectives on Literacy Learning
The last reading theory to be considered encourages a broader perspective of learning from that of the individual child and knowledge to children as inseparable from their social contexts and knowledge and meaning as embedded within
sociocultural practices. A more holistic perspective views children’s learning as occurring through their involvement in literacy activities and practices that happen in their social environment. Learning is thought to occur through interaction, negotiation, and collaboration and considers the influence of parental input, cultural, historical, and the child’s imaginative world (Lanter, 2006). Sociocultural theory supports Vygotsky’s theory of learning as a social process (1978).
Understanding the ways that people use literacy in their everyday lives and finding ways to ensure that literacy instruction is meaningful and relevant by recognizing and incorporating children’s out-‐of-‐school ways of practicing literacy helps promote learning. Decreasing literacy gaps for students whose families and communities practice literacy in ways that may differ from those in the mainstream or positions of power benefits more learners. Sociocultural theory focuses on the effect of instruction, how learning takes place, and the impact of adults and peers on the learning process as well as their social and cultural capital (Perry, 2012).
Critical Factors in Early Literacy Acquisition
Literacy begins at birth and is a developmental process that continues throughout ones’ life. Everything that adults do to support young children’s
language and literacy counts in the development of literacy (Hart & Risley, 1995). Literacy skills are often accurate forecasters of employability and are connected to income (Murnane & Levy, 2004 as cited in Snow, 2004). Literacy has the power to change lives, even for those learning to read later in life after growing up unable to read.
In their first years of life, children are exposed to literacy skills and behaviors that influence language and literacy outcomes in later years continuing on until they enter school. As Schickedanz (1986) suggests, the more formal learning
environment at school should be an extension of the learning of literacy that begins at home. Although formal teaching of conventional literacy skills does not begin until children enter kindergarten and first grade, the infant, toddler and preschool years are viewed as the place where “children take their first critical steps toward learning to read and write” (National Association for the Education of Young Children, 1998, p. 32). Another term to define this early literacy is “emergent literacy”. Bennet, Weigel & Martin (2002) define emergent literacy as the literacy skills that young children develop before formal schooling. Of paramount
importance is the understanding that emergent literacy is a process-‐ one that continues and grows over time. Children need to make sense of their world, to explore their natural curiosities, and to communicate.
Research from the late 1980’s looked at the home and examined specific activities and resultant skills and knowledge about literacy taking place in this environment. Van Kleeck and Schuele (2010) conclude from this body of work that as children interact with print in the informal setting of home, as they watch adults
interact with print, in the context of sharing books with adults and in explorations with their own writing, children become aware that print is meaningful and useful. This attitude and belief lays the foundation in children’s transition to reading and writing. According to van Kleek and Shuele (2010), long before they possess
conventional literacy skills, children involve themselves with acts of literacy in their independent and guided play and in other activities related to literacy. Similar recommendations for parents at home and teachers at preschools advise activities that extend far beyond shared reading (Neuman, Copple, & Bredekamp, 2000).
Home Support
“Research has shown the importance of home support in early childhood learning and development” (Yuen, 2011, p. 147). An article by Strickland (2004), talks about the role of literacy in early childhood education. Strickland reminds us that in young children, oral language and literacy develop together and, that,
“children learn from listening and talking and this contributes to their ability to read and write and vice versa” (2004, p. 86). Yuen’s (2011) recent case study of parents, teachers and children in China supports this claim. She examined a school-‐based initiative to engage parents in supporting their children’s learning. Part of the evaluation included examining parents’ and teachers’ evaluation of the project. Six teachers and sixty families read daily newsletters written and illustrated by their Kindergarten children to communicate with their parents. Data collection included interviews, records of observations, and minutes of meetings. An analysis of the data showed that parents agreed that the project enhanced their understanding of
parent-‐child interaction. Teachers believed the project would affect the children’s growth as thinkers and communicators. Children were motivated to learn and express their ideas. The researcher concluded that writing and illustrating promoted children’s literacy development, learning motivation, parent-‐child communication, and home-‐school collaboration. She also concluded the growing need to empower parents to support the education of young children. Blasi and Hill-‐ Clark agreed with Yuen’s conclusion, stating that, “Educators can help families of young children improve their awareness and knowledge of optimal literacy development” (2005, p. 46).
Even when parents are not considered aware of optimal literacy
development, “Research supports the conclusion that considerable language and literacy related development occurs before formal reading instruction” (Wiegel & Martin, 2005). Families and child care play an important role in the development of literacy and the literacy and language skills developed during the preschool years are among some of the strongest predictors of school success (Werner & Smith, 1992). A study by Weigel and Martin (2005) compared the influences of home and child-‐care literacy environments with preschool-‐age children’s literacy and
language development. Interviews and standardized assessment data was collected from 85 preschool-‐age children, their parents, and their child-‐care teachers. Print knowledge, language skills, expressive and receptive language were measured. Findings from correlation and hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed that children’s print knowledge was consistently associated with parents and teachers personal reading and writing habits, language activities conducted with
children, and parental and teacher belief. In addition, children’s literacy and language skills benefit when parents and teachers value their role in supporting those skills. These results also imply that to enhance literacy and language outcomes for preschool age children, both home and preschool environments need to be strengthened. Unfortunately this study examined a limited number of literacy skills from middle-‐class participants and relied on self-‐reported data from parents and teachers, which may suggest that parents misinterpreted the questions asked. Parents and educators literacy habits, activities and beliefs play a big role in the development of preschoolers’ language and literacy development. The many
contexts of which children take part in literacy activities at home and in preschools influences their literacy development. As Dickinson and Tabors (1991) affirmed, “the contributions of both homes and schools must be taken into account when one is examining the roots of literacy”.
A case study by Neumann, Hood & Neumann (2009), provides an interesting and intentional way to develop literacy in young children by the use of scaffolding emergent writing and letter knowledge at home while using environmental print. The two and a half-‐year old son of two of the researchers was taught emergent literacy skills through scaffolding prior to school entry. Environmental print was used to learn to learn how to read and write in a multi-‐sensory approach. Data collection included notes, recording, writing samples, and dialog samples. An analysis of the data suggested that the scaffolding approach, incorporating
environmental print, and using a multisensory approach, is a promising approach for supporting early literacy skills, particularly emergent writing skills, alphabet
knowledge, and print motivation. The credibility of two parents studying their son is questionable. A controlled, randomized trial of this approach, with standardized quantitative measures is needed to determine the benefits of the approach for scaffolding young children’s literacy.
Motivating Learning
Early literacy learning can be incidental or intentional. Taking advantage of children’s individual interests to help motivate learning is one approach to
maximize learning. In addition, Farver et al.’s (2006) study included the finding that childrens’ report of literacy interest mediates the relation between parents’
involvement in literacy related activities. Baroody and Diamond (2010) examined associations among children’s self-‐reported literacy interest, their parents’ report of their home literacy environment, and their code-‐related skills. 81 four and five-‐year-‐ old preschoolers at risk for reading difficulties and enrolled in Head Start programs or local child care centers in a small Midwestern town in the United States and their parents were studied. Data included parent questionnaires focused on family
characteristics and home learning environments, three assessments of children’s literacy skills: alphabet knowledge, letter-‐word knowledge, and receptive language, and children’s interest in literacy activities was measured. An analysis of the data reported two major themes. Children who reported a higher interest in literacy activities also had more knowledge of code-‐related skills including the alphabet and children who reported higher levels of interest in literacy activities were more likely to know ten or more letters of the alphabet. Children with age-‐level receptive
activity and child-‐reported interest. Evidence that children’s interest in literacy-‐ related activities is related to learning code-‐related emergent literacy skills is provided by this study. In addition, children who know more letters and perform better on tasks related to letters and words are more highly interested in literacy activities. Previous studies demonstrate that letter knowledge is a good predictor of children’s reading development (Wagner, Torgesen, & Rashotte, 1994). Although this study only used one measure of language and a small sample size, further studies of children’s interest in literacy-‐related activities related to emergent
literacy outcomes is indicated to better understand the role of interest to outcomes.
Readiness for Learning
Although the idea of being ready to learn or “readiness for school” is controversial because many believe that schools should be ready to adapt to their students needs, not the other way round, the literature primarily takes up the perspective of getting the child ready for formal learning. School readiness usually refers to children’s social and cognitive preparedness for formal schooling.
According to a national survey of kindergarten teachers in the United States, fifty percent of children entering school exhibit a lack of academic or social skills needed for success (Skibbe et al, 2011: Farver et al, 2006).
Researchers view socio emotional skills including self-‐regulation, as skills first developed in the home environment (Farver et al., 2006). Blair and Razza (2007) define self-‐regulation in children as the “developmental integration of emotion and cognition in early childhood” (p. 697). There are two kinds of self-‐ regulation, cognitive and social-‐emotional. According to Leong and Bodrova (2003),
planning ahead, reflection, and controlling one’s behavior is cognitive and delaying gratification and following the rules without reminders are examples of socio-‐ emotional self-‐regulation.
A plethora of studies have investigated readiness for school-‐based learning. Skibbe et al. (2011) examined the influence of schooling during children’s first and second years of preschool in relationship to chronological age. Seventy-‐six four year-‐old children were tested in the fall and spring using measures of self-‐
regulation, decoding, letter knowledge and vocabulary. Data was analyzed using a hierarchical linear model and the study concluded that preschool is not associated with children’s development of self-‐regulation in either year. Decoding and letter knowledge was positively affected by two years of preschool. Children’s
chronological age, not one to two years of preschool predicted vocabulary and self-‐ regulation outcomes. Development of vocabulary was attributed to play
experiences, not direct instruction. The validity of this study would be increased if it included a diverse sample of participants from different ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. Overall results indicate that more preschool is better than less as children demonstrated significant gains in vocabulary skills in both years. Another study within this age group looked at various aspects of self-‐regulation. The
objective was to explore variations in the home environment of low-‐income Latino families with regard to two school readiness skills: children’s oral language, and social functioning. 122 low socioeconomic status Latino mothers completed questionnaires about their family demography, home environment, and their perceived parenting stress. Preschool teachers rated the children’s social
functioning and children’s receptive vocabulary was tested. Data was collected at the beginning of the preschool year. Results demonstrated that children’s interest in literacy promoted their oral language and social functioning. Perceived parenting stress was directly associated with oral language and social functioning scores. The use of self-‐administered questionnaires to assess the home environment is always subject to bias. Studies that included families with a higher socioeconomic status would inform us as to whether these results are true across different socioeconomic levels. In addition, other related aspects of early language development would provide more information of children’s potential. Not only are social and relational skills among the best primary prerequisites for school readiness, they are also the best predictors of children’s academic and social functioning at school entry (Farver et al., 2006). In addition, if the affective environment of the home is positive and children and parents enjoy shared reading activities, school readiness skills are enhanced (Britto, 2001).
Social skills are an important part of school readiness. Some researchers advocate that readiness for kindergarten includes social task mastery specific to kindergarten. Examining skills that children are likely to encounter in kindergarten can help prepare children for success in school (Ladd, 2006). Efforts by parents to support preschoolers in activities with their peers and other social activities are important preparatory activities. Many kindergarten teachers prioritize social and emotional development over academic development and view socially and
emotionally mature children as learning more quickly in the classroom (Wesley & Buysse, 2003).
